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This will work with any dried paint unless it's so dry you can't stick your fingernail into it. Add a tiny amount of water, just a teensy weeny bit, then stir, and stir, and stir. Stir for a minute, then shake for ten minutes. If it's too dry, then keep shaking every day for as long as possible until completely dissolved. This actually works, and I know people say it's acrylic and can' t be turned back, but I've tried it and I've had lots of success. All hail to eternal emperor if mankind!

I've seen one of these once...


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Hobby Paint Shaker...

Instead of water use acrylic medium works much better. Also stir with a cocktail stick or one thing similar

As long as the acrylic hasn't cross linked, you can put it back into solution by adding solvent (water).

If it has cross linked though, you won't be able to bring it back around without some chemistry. Small amounts of ammonia can break the chain without causing significant damage to the pigments. This can soften it enough that you can add something like a thin binder (Future for example) and then reconstitute it that way.

Once you have done your work though and it is completely mixed - you will want to go ahead and strain the paint to remove all the chunks of acrylic that had cured and were not broken down again.

While you are at it - put it in a bottle that doesn't suck so that it doesn't end up drying out prematurely again (still have some old Partha Paints that are in good condition...from a company that went out of business over 15 years ago...).
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Granted, all of that said - unless I were attached to a specific paint for some odd reason, time/money = buy new bottle of paint. My time is worth significantly more than the cost of a bottle of new paint...even at the prices that GW charges. It takes a fair amount of effort to get the paint back in working condition, and other than the academic challenge of doing it a few times...it really isn't worth while to me.

Tamiya Paint Thinner.

Add a bit. Mix. Shake. Bam. Good as new.

Tamiya Paint thinner is a lacquer thinner base (not hardware store - melt plastic strength...but much stronger than most acrylic "thinners"). Does the same thing as a bit of ammonia in terms of breaking the polymer chains which may have began the crosslinking process.

You still do need to watch the overall balance between useable binder and unusable pigment/fillers. The semi-cured acrylic effectively becomes a filler as opposed to a binder and that can lead to adhesion issues if they become too far gone.

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See if you can get a cheap (or used) vortex mixer.

Probably the best $100 I ever spent. Works well enough for dropper bottles, takes a bit of practice to get the right angle with the various wider bottomed paint pots.

They are designed to last for years of use in lab environments.

 Sean_OBrien wrote:
Tamiya Paint thinner is a lacquer thinner base (not hardware store - melt plastic strength...but much stronger than most acrylic "thinners"). Does the same thing as a bit of ammonia in terms of breaking the polymer chains which may have began the crosslinking process.

You still do need to watch the overall balance between useable binder and unusable pigment/fillers. The semi-cured acrylic effectively becomes a filler as opposed to a binder and that can lead to adhesion issues if they become too far gone.

Hmm, interesting. That explains a lot.

(It is really, really good though- I had some ancient Skull White that had basically turned into paste. White seems to be the worst when it comes to paint going off. Mixed in a bit of thinner and it was good as new.)

It's also good as a low-tech (but slow) paint stripper- soak some tissue/cotton wool in the stuff and you can use it to rub away paint. I suppose it's basically fairly weak solvent after all.

I've had good luck with Vallejo Airbrush Cleaner for paints that look really bad. Though I don't add enough to get them back to the correct consistency, just enough to soften the block up and then I use a thinner or some water to get it back to good.

I've never had much luck with water when the paint is really bad, but maybe it's just because I'm too lazy to work at it.

 Kelly502 wrote:
I've seen one of these once...


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Hobby Paint Shaker...

What?! That is just awesome!